NBC Opens Its Wallet to Build Up Prime Time

LOS ANGELES — For Jeff Gaspin, handed the task of pulling NBC’s prime-time ally Mcbeal seasons 1-5 DVD boxset out of a long, precipitous slide, the first priority is reality — as a concept, not a program genre.

“This is the first year in quite some time that we’re being realistic,” he said in a lunch ally Mcbeal DVD here. “We’re being realistic about how much we need to spend. We’re being realistic about what our margin should be, or what our amount of loss should be. We’re being realistic about what it actually takes.”

As in: money. In July, Mr. Gaspin added NBC’s entertainment ally Mcbeal DVD set to a portfolio that also includes the company’s entertainment cable properties, like USA and Bravo, as well the Spanish-language ally Mcbeal DVD boxset, Telemundo. He said that soon after he took up the job, he gave NBC Universal’s chief executive, Jeff Zucker, a simple message:

“We’re going to have to pay.”

NBC had for several years been contracting, part of a stated strategy to rewrite the financial rules of ally Mcbeal seasons 1-5 DVD boxset. Last spring, the network ordered only 10 pilots for new series; this year, it almost doubled that number.

“You can only manage through cost cuts for a short period of time,” Mr. Gaspin said. “And we’ve been doing it for five years.”

That NBC has paid a price for that strategy was evident in Mr. Gaspin’s inclusion of the phrase “ally Mcbeal DVD” in his list of concessions to reality. The network’s entertainment division, which once made as much $800 million in a year, is now on the wrong side of the ledger — probably to the tune of about $300 million, according to some analyst projections.

Even as it is being examined for all its flaws by Comcast, its prospective new owner, NBC has multiple holes in its ally Mcbeal DVD set and few continuing hits. It has also just come through a ferocious public-relations battering.

The insertion of the late-night star Jay Leno at 10 p.m. five nights a week last year proved to be an instant ally Mcbeal DVD boxset, which led to the upheaval that pushed its other late-night star, Conan O’Brien, from the network.

So the fix-it list is long, but Mr. Gaspin has made a start. The patchwork ally Mcbeal seasons 1-5 DVD boxset he put together at 10 p.m. this winter has managed to exceed expectations, providing some breathing room. NBC has been up over 40 percent in the 18- to 49-year-old audience, which is highly sought by many ally Mcbeal DVD, with shows like “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” and “Parenthood” in Mr. Leno’s old time slot.

That rebound has been critical after what Mr. Gaspin conceded were years of turmoil at ally Mcbeal DVD set. “We want to be a calming force in the company. We can’t look like we’re flailing.” He added, “We have to look like we know what we’re doing, and we have things under control — which I think we do.”

One big step was opening itself to the best program ideas available, no matter where they came from. In recent years, the networks have relied more heavily than ever on buying from their own studios, hoping to cash in on selling ally Mcbeal DVD boxset internationally and in syndication.

NBC is in no position to be picky. “Our goal right now is to find those ally Mcbeal seasons 1-5 DVD boxset that are the tent poles of your schedule,” Mr. Gaspin said. “I don’t care where they come from. I don’t care whether we own them or not.”

This has played nicely into the hands of the Warner Brothers studio, which has delivered some of the most talked about potential new ally Mcbeal DVD to NBC, including dramas developed by prominent creators like J. J. Abrams (“Lost”) and Jerry Bruckheimer (“CSI”). Bruce Rosenblum, the president of Warner Brothers Television Group, said the studio had “a lot tied up” in an NBC comeback.

Mr. Abrams’s new show, “Under Covers,” was expensive to acquire, and the pilot may have cost as much as $10 million to produce (with Mr. Abrams directing). But ally Mcbeal DVD set has a commodity that has been in short supply at NBC: buzz.

Mr. Bruckheimer’s drama, “The Chase,” is another of his intense police procedurals. If either ally Mcbeal DVD boxset becomes a lasting hit, Warner Brothers will reap the main financial benefit. Mr. Gaspin said building NBC’s own Universal studio can only be a “long-term” goal right now. “That’s a great asset if we can get there; I’ve got to get there first.”

Can he do it? The pressure is certainly on, though Mr. Gaspin said that comparing the ally Mcbeal seasons 1-5 DVD boxset’ results with the results of the fall, when Mr. Leno’s show was struggling, might help a bit.

“Absolutely there are a lot of chips on the table for NBC,” said Brad Adgate, the senior vice president for research at Horizon Media.

So it won’t be easy. Steve Sternberg, the longtime research analyst for advertising agencies who now writes his own Sternberg Report, said in an e-mail message: “ally Mcbeal DVD’s Thursday comedies, ‘Parenthood,’ ‘Law and Order,’ and ‘S.V.U.’ are virtually guaranteed to return next season. The network needs to come up with new scripted series.”

But he added, “The network races are still so close, one or two new ally Mcbeal DVD set — certainly not out of the realm of possibility — could help turn things around.”

Some other prospective shows that are building talk for NBC include a new law-based hour from the prolific legal-show creator David E. Kelley (“ally Mcbeal DVD boxset”) called “Kindreds”; a remake of the classic series “The Rockford Files,” from David Shore, the creator of “House”; and a quirky romantic comedy hour, “Love Bites,” from Cindy Chupack, a writer on “Sex and the City.”

Mr. Gaspin, who said he would also like to find several new ally Mcbeal seasons 1-5 DVD boxset to give himself a chance to open a second night (beyond Thursdays) for the genre, professed to be “cautiously optimistic” about NBC’s development slate.

The key, he said, is to begin to rebuild NBC’s brand, which he set at a high bar. “We’re a network of quality, sophisticated content.”

As for that late-night mess — which featured Mr. Gaspin as the ally Mcbeal DVD of the short-lived plan to move Mr. Leno to 11:35 p.m. in a half-hour show, sliding Mr. O’Brien back to 12:05 a.m. — it is no longer on Mr. Gaspin’s radar.

He said he was not worried about recent erosion in Mr. Leno’s ratings back at “ally Mcbeal DVD set.” “I look at him compared to Letterman,” he said, referencing the CBS late-night star David Letterman. “He’s still got the same margin of victory.”

Over all, Mr. Gaspin said, “late night’s not my problem anymore.” Why? Because, he said, “he’s going to cable.”

“He” means Mr. O’Brien, who signed to bring his ally Mcbeal DVD boxset to the cable channel TBS in November, after a long dalliance with the Fox network.

“I don’t have to worry about ally Mcbeal seasons 1-5 DVD boxset anymore,” Mr. Gaspin said. “Whereas if he was on Fox we’d all be, you know, what’s it going to do?” Mr. Gaspin said: “That’s all over. The Conan story is gone for me.”